{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/210/2100202.htm","path":"chr/ecf/210/2100202.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/210/2100202.htm","text":"Arius is charged with the first of the above-mentioned errors, and refuted by the testimony of St. John. The miserable death of the Heresiarch is described, and the rest of his blasphemous errors are one by one examined and disproved.\n123. Arius, then, says: \u201cThere was a time when the Son of God existed not,\u201d but Scripture saith: \u201cHe was,\u201d not that \u201cHe was not.\u201d Furthermore, St. John has written: \u201cIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.\u201d 1877 Observe how often the verb \u201cwas\u201d appears, whereas \u201cwas not\u201d is nowhere found. Whom, then, are we to believe?\u2014St. John, who lay on Christ\u2019s bosom, or Arius, wallowing amid the outgush of his very bowels?\u2014so wallowing that we might understand how Arius in his teaching showed himself like unto Judas, being visited with like punishment.\n124. For Arius\u2019 bowels also gushed out\u2014decency forbids to say where\u2014and so he burst asunder in the midst, falling headlong, and besmirching those foul lips wherewith he had denied Christ. He was rent, even as the Apostle Peter said of Judas, because he \u201cbought a field with the price of evil-doing, and falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.\u201d 1878 It was no chance manner of death, seeing that like wickedness was visited with like punishment, to the end that those who denied and betrayed the same Lord might likewise undergo the same torment.\n125. Let us pass on to further points. Arius says: \u201cBefore He was born, the Son of God was not,\u201d but the Scripture saith that all things are maintained in existence by the Son\u2019s office. How, then, could He, Who existed not, bestow existence upon others? Again, when the blasphemer uses the words \u201cwhen\u201d and \u201cbefore,\u201d he certainly uses words which are marks of time. How, then, do the Arians deny that time was ere the Son was, and yet will have things created in time to exist before the Son, seeing that the very words, \u201cwhen,\u201d \u201cbefore,\u201d and \u201cdid not exist once,\u201d announce the idea of time?\n126. Arius says that the Son of God came into being out of nought. How, then, is He Son of God\u2014how was He begotten from the womb of the Father\u2014how do we read of Him as the Word spoken of the heart\u2019s abundance, save to the end that we should believe that He came forth, as it is written, from the Father\u2019s inmost, unapproachable sanctuary? Now a son is so called either by means of adoption or by nature, as we are called sons by means of adoption. 1879 Christ is the Son of God by virtue of His real and abiding nature. How, then, can He, Who out of nothing fashioned all things, be Himself created out of nothing?\n127. He who knows not whence the Son is hath not the Son. The Jews therefore had not the Son, for they knew not whence He was. Wherefore the Lord said to them: \u201cYe know not whence I came;\u201d 1880 and again: \u201cYe neither have found out Who I am, nor know My Father,\u201d for he who denies that the Son is of the Father knows not the Father, of Whom the Son is; and again, he knows not the Son, because he knows not the Father.\n128. Arius says: \u201c[The Son is] of another Substance.\u201d But what other substance is exalted to equality with the Son of God, so that simply in virtue thereof He is Son of God? Or what right have the Arians for censuring us because we speak, in Greek, of the \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1, or in Latin, of the Substantia of God, when they themselves, in saying that the Son of God is of another \u201cSubstance,\u201d assert a divine Substantia.\n129. Howbeit, should they desire to dispute the use of the words \u201cdivine Substance\u201d or \u201cdivine Nature,\u201d they shall easily be refuted, for Holy Writ oft-times hath spoken of \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 in Greek, or Substantia p. 222 in Latin, and St. Peter, as we read, would have us become partakers in the divine Nature. But if they will have it that the Son is of another \u201cSubstance,\u201d they with their own lips confute themselves, in that they both acknowledge the term \u201cSubstance,\u201d whereof they are so afraid, and rank the Son on a level with the creatures above which they feign to exalt Him.\n130. Arius calls the Son of God a creature, but \u201cnot as the rest of the creatures.\u201d Yet what created being is not different from another? Man is not as angel, earth is not as heaven, the sun is not as water, nor light as darkness. Arius\u2019 preference, therefore, is empty\u2014he hath but disguised with a sorry dye his deceitful blasphemies, in order to take the foolish.\n131. Arius declares that the Son of God may change and swerve. How, then, is He God if He is changeable, seeing that He Himself hath said: \u201cI am, I am, and I change not\u201d? 1881\nS. John i. 1-3.\n221:1878\nActs i. 18. Arius seems to have been carried off by a terrible attack of cholera or some kindred malady. See Newman, Arians of the Fourth Century, Ch. 3. \u00a7 2, and Robertson, History of the Christian Church, vol. 1. pp. 301\u20132, ed. 1875.\n221:1879\n(1) \u201cthe word spoken,\u201d etc.\u2014Ps. xlv. 1. Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum.\u2014Vulg. \u1f10\u03be\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03be\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf \u1f21 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03af\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd.\u2014LXX. (2) \u201csons by adoption.\u201d\u2014Gal. 4:4, 5.\n221:1880\nS. John viii. 14.\n222:1881\nSt. Ambrose\u2019 version differs in expression from the Vulg.\u2014Ego enim Dominus et non mutor (Mal. iii. 6)\u2014but not in substance, for Ego sum Dominus and \u201cI am the Lord\u201d both mean \u201cI am He who is\u201d\u2014(\u1f41 \u1f62\u03bd)\u2014which is very well represented by Ego sum, Ego sum\u2014\u201cI am, I am.\u201d\u2014Cf. Ex. iii. 14.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. X: Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons.: Chapter XIX. Arius is charged with the first of the above-mentioned errors, and refuted by the testimony of St. John. The miserable death of the Heresiarch is described, and the rest of his blasphemous errors are one by one examined and disproved.","type":"page"}